


for reasons older than silver

by spiraetspera



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Gen, Ishval Civil War, Mustang's Team, PTSD, Team as Family, Trials for War Crimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiraetspera/pseuds/spiraetspera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I knew it was wrong, but I had done it anyway. I killed that boy in the desert and I shot his father before his eyes. And I shot another sixty fathers and sons. For that, I must pay the price."</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>Riza Hawkeye is put on trial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for reasons older than silver

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could wholeheartedly say I did justice for Riza, but in reality, I just made myself sad and made her character face her own prophesy. The story is a bit more layered though, since there is also a political pretext that causes Riza to be the first one to be tried.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy and comment if you have time!
> 
> Thank you immensely for Arthi.

"Is that....?"

  
"Oh my god - that is Mustang's subordinate, whatshername.... One Eye?"

  
"You idiot, that is the Hawkeye, y' know; the one who saved Slyvia's ass in Ishval. Guess she had that handcuff comin' for a long time, though. Killed more than eighty people in the rebellion."

 

"I woulda rather shot myself after the first week than to kill people."

  
".... Yeah, yeah, same. Say, wasn't it Mustang himself who initiated the re-trial policies? Crime and Punishment and shit."

  
"Wow, and his own people are the first to be tried? How fucking fitting. Hey, maybe, this is on purpose!"

  
"Um, what?"

  
"It starts with an e and ends with lections. Wants people to see him as authentic and repenting, y'know? It's a trick."

  
"Still, would he sacrifice his own soldiers to win?"

  
" _Absolutely_."

 

***

 

[EXCERPT FROM 'VATO FALMAN: DIARY OF 1920 - _YEAR OF THE SALAMANDER_ ']

 

  
2 of November, 1920

  
Terrible day. They came for her [ed. Hawkeye, Riza] right a month after the beloved leader of the people, the wise and eccentric Fuhrer Grumman [114], died.

It was said that Amestrian leader fell asleep during a negotation ceremony with the Xingese and never awakened again. The officials who were with him, including the very young Emperor Yin Lao, claimed that he looked as if dreaming, indeed, he _even_ had a smile on his ageworn face.

  
Yet the loss was so sudden, that many Amestrians suspected political intrigue and wanted blood, or at least, an explanation. In tandem with the uproars, the potential inheritors of the high seat of the Fuhrer started to stir, and so obviously the General [ed. Mustang, Roy] too, felt like he needs to enter the presidential race with a bang. Being a shrewd man, he volunteered to finalize the Xingese Treaty [115] and appease the violent _vox populi_.

  
~~And it was thus that the first time in more than ten years, General Mustang asked his Major to stay behind, for his visit should have been a brief and more or less smooth one.~~

  
It had taken two and a half hours to convince the General that the Major must, or rather, should stay. Both Captain Breda and myself had overheard Mustang's appeal which consisted of twenty-five very well thought-out arguments - including the General's fear for his own safety, sanity and sobriety as well as the joy that Hawkeye would feel upon seeing the younger Elric brother and his fiancée who were the most distinguished residents of Xing at this present time - but since Riza is the most logical in this group of six (Captain Havoc would correct me by saying; and I quote; " _In the whole damn military_ ") she won this dual argument by one single sentence:

  
"Sir, do you or don't you want your campaign to be ready by the time you come back?"

  
The Genereral left in the following week and two days after his departure, the opposition came for Riza Hawkeye.

 

***

  
**OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE SHORT-LISTED PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEES**  
Lt. General Archer, Frank ( _radical_ )  
General Armstrong, Olivier Mira _(radical_ )  
General Mustang, Roy ( _progressive_ )

  
18 of October, 1920

 

***

  
”This is ridiculous” said Fuery what seemed like the eighth time. Then – given the last time he used the term ' _ridiculous_ ' had been when Breda, upon losing a bet to Denny Brosh, had to sing ' _Lookin' for some hot stuff baby this evening_ ' every single time Mustang appeared – he corrected himself and settled for: ”This is wrong. Havoc, they cannot _really_ do this, can they?”

Jean Havoc looked like he had a hard time not to inject nicotine straight into his aorta. Still, he withdrew the cigarette from his mouth and put it into the tray in an obscenely slow fashion.

”It doesn't matter. They did it.”

Fuery sank to his desk; the battered radio before him in need of a proper fix forgotten. Hacov kept scratching his chin where his goatee used to be. No Mustang and no Hawkeye either... what an absolutely shitty situation. Just before he fell into a long-time-no-felt wave of lamentation, the noise which Fuery made instantly woke him up.

The young technician was ravaging through Hawkeye's table, and instead of doing what any other sane person would do (that is: asking for the keys to her cabinet) Fuery simply attempted to strain the lock with the biggest screwdriver Havoc had ever seen in his short life.

”Holy fuck, kid!” he yelped and jumped to save at least one of Fuery's arms. He snatched the thing he officially labelled as a weapon from his hands. ”There are easier ways, ok?”

Fuery was panting. He looked like he was about to weep. Havoc could not blame him.

”Look. We gonna fix this. I mean, err, not the table, because that's just done for – but we gonna get her out of there. She is _not_ going to stay in jail.”

And at that, he himself felt like crying, because fuck, they took her away in chains, and she obeyed them, she did not even protest for a moment. Riza Hawkeye's steelsolid hands in chains if she were a filthy _fucking_ criminal -

Instead of shedding some tears though, he patted Fuery shoulders and head forcefully, because the kid was not even twenty and every one of them felt like they were overgoing unanaesthetized surgery as Hawkeye was being led away.

”You are right though,” he said. ”We gotta get her things out before the others do.”

”And by others, you mean mothershocking Frank Archer” said a voice from the door. Havoc sent Breda to follow Riza and the men who took her, and now he apparently returned. He looked ready to kill someone. ”Archer orchestrated this.”

The men who came in name of justice. The men who Havoc and Breda and even Falman were ready to fight when they asked for Riza's guns and badges. Before any of them could have uttered a word (which was likely to have been an overly-complex and grammatically-flawed cuss) Major Hawkeye's cabinet gave up and the lock simply fell off.

”Um” said Breda. ”Nice work?”

 

***

 

Falman arrived hours later, when the three of them were knee-deep in papers, both formal and informal.

 

”These ones are bills... oh shit, she is keeping track of my coffee consumption!”

 

”She better, kid, I'm pretty sure that's the reason behind the military deficit."

 

"These are... dog treats. Want a bite, Heymans?'

  
"Hav, please fuck yourself."

  
Kain noticed him and immediately jumped to shake his hands. The others followed, with a handful of papers in their hands. And though it was Falman who was running up and around all day in the crazycold November night, it was the three remaining men who froze upon seeing the look on his face.

  
"Vato," said Breda, alarmed and ready. "How do we look?"

  
"Do you mean aesthetically, morally or legally?"

  
The attempt to joke on Falman's part was positively disturbing.

  
The older officer raised his hand, performing a waving sort of movement. It looked like a ritual, ancient and coded to chase the demons or the curse away. Havoc felt as if his blood had gone bad.

  
"Not to good," Vato finally put his right down. "A Legal case of Inter alia, that is, a serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict. Charged with the murder of eighty civilians. The charges against her also include causing serious injury to body or health; extensive destruction or appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. She is currently in - "

  
"Central Prison" finished Breda, more slowly than before, as if something had been strung in-between his brain, stopping the lightyear pace of his mind.

  
A heavy silence passed between the men who served and who loved Riza Hawkeye with immense tenacity. It was an ugly silence too, screaming of paralysis, of powerlessness.  
"They put her into Kimblee's cell." said Falman softly, as if confessing. He covered his face. Indignation, like a knife wound, opened Havoc from the inside - the last time he felt this pain was when his spine was ripped apart in a laboratory far from the sun.

  
"We - " he gulped because everyone stared at him and he stared back, incredulous and dizzy for he realized he was much more frightened than he ever was, even more than in that laboratory where he thought he would die. If not, if not, if not for them. "We owe this woman our life, correct? The least we can do is to fight for her dignity and freedom."

  
And then he saluted and knew it looked ridiculous, because it was near midnight and papers like towers threatened to fall around them like the world they knew. A world and had not realized they should cherish. But then Breda saluted and Fuery saluted and Falman wiped his eyes and nose and saluted too.

  
A huge stack of papers fainted behind Fuery as he lowered his hand and asked, clear as a bell.

  
"Sooooo... who is telling the General?"

 

***

  
It is a rarity that even the night remained scorching hot. Tara and her brother, Ruck decided to come out of their hiding place during that warmest part of the black moon's reign. They had to wait so that so that _palo'v chilia entilai_ , the woman with a thousand eyes who dwelled in the tower facing their sanctuary, would not spot them. Tara was jealous when she had first heard this. Her eyes were damaged from birth, and only one man from the whole of the village had an ocular, but he was a bad man, a forbidden man according to Ruck and her parents. A forbidden man with forbidden sight.

  
So Tara kept on searching for sense in the speckles among the dust. Ruck grabbed her hands to lead her away from the space they had inhabited for more than a week.

After they breathed in the first gulp of the blood-tinted, stuffy air, Ruck, who was older than Tara by four years, pointed her to the nearest ocean of ruins. Lights were wobbling far, far away. It looked like they danced their seductive dance for her alone.

  
"You have to go that way. Keep your feet out of the blood and march to Logue. He is there. He is waiting for you."

  
But Tara did not budge; not even a bit.

  
"Aren't you coming?" she asked, timid. It was obvious her brother did not wish to go. She could not see his face. Only hear the anger; only feel the fury.

  
But then Ruck said;

  
"I am killing the _entilai_ ," it sounded so simple but Tara imagined it to be violent and absurd; like her parents' death. Their ashes smiling in their calm, their ashes in their hair and face. " I am going up her tower."

  
_Ishvala, yen iparkei as eieni_. Ishvala, bring them peace.

  
"I am _going_ , " Ruck repeated again, more hotly this time. As if she protested, but she did not. "I am going and you can't stop me."

  
Then there was rustling behind them and a voice;

  
"Who is there?"

  
Ruck pushed him into the soundless sand in a second. They laid down next to each other, breathing in a small and silent way. The man was a soldier, Tara was sure of it, but he had no light and in what seemed a whole hour, he passed down - stretching the distance into one, then two and three meters.

  
And then her brother scrambled to his feet, not quite standing tall and more like a half crouch. He had a smaller gun in his hands which the moon painted silver like it was the jewellery of death.

  
_Ishvala, yakan iparkon as eieni_. Ishvala, bring us peace.

  
What Tara did not realize, that just above them, in that old, chasm-like tower, a woman was also praying with her. She prayed with her preys and prayed for their peace too.

  
"Drop that gun, child;" Riza Hawkeye mouthed to no one particular. She might not have realized her prayer at all. But she remembered this suffocating Ishvalan night, remembered it in her dreams and remembered till her last breath.

  
The boy could not have been even twelve years old, the girl, barely a child. Their hairs were like halos, but Riza knew better. This was not to be a holy night.

  
"Drop that gun," she said, louder this time to the rocks around her, while gripping her own rifle harder not letting her fingers or eyes wander. The boy raised the gun, tried to aim.

  
The sound of his cranium cracking was louder than any bell on Christmas. His sister had frozen, a mockery of a snowman in the desert, mouth gaping as she too, was shot down a second later, by the guard on the ruined ground.

  
_That ruin arrived way before I shot_ , she thought decades later, _but the ruin did not leave_.


End file.
